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Commentary: A few comments have been posted aboutPrincipal Doctrines.
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1. A happy and eternal being has no trouble himself and brings notrouble upon any other being; hence he is exempt from movements of angerand partiality, for every such movement implies weakness
2. Death is nothing to us; for the body, when it has beenresolved into its elements, has no feeling, and that which has no feelingis nothing to us.
3. The magnitude of pleasure reaches its limit in the removalof all pain. When pleasure is present, so long as it is uninterrupted,there is no pain either of body or of mind or of bothtogether.
4. Continuous pain does not last long in the body; on thecontrary, pain, if extreme, is present a short time, and even that degreeof pain which barely outweighs pleasure in the body does not last for manydays together. Illnesses of long duration even permit of an excess of pleasureover pain in the body.
5. It is impossible to live a pleasant life without livingwisely and well and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and welland justly without living pleasantly. Whenever any one of these is lacking,when, for instance, the person is not able to live wisely, though he liveswell and justly, it is impossible for him to live a pleasantlife.
6. In order to obtain security from other people any meanswhatever of procuring this was a natural good.
7. Some people have sought to become famous and renowned,thinking that thus they would make themselves secure against their fellow-humans.If, then, the life of such persons really was secure, they attained naturalgood; if, however, it was insecure, they have not attained the end whichby nature's own prompting they originally sought.
8. No pleasure is in itself evil, but the things which producecertain pleasures entail annoyances many times greater than the pleasuresthemselves.
9. If all pleasure had been capable of accumulation, --if this had gone on not only be recurrences in time, but all over the frameor, at any rate, over the principal parts of human nature, there wouldnever have been any difference between one pleasure and another, as infact there is.
10. If the objects which are productive of pleasures toprofligate persons really freed them from fears of the mind, -- the fears,I mean, inspired by celestial and atmospheric phenomena, the fear of death,the fear of pain; if, further, they taught them to limit their desires,we should never have any fault to find with such persons, for they wouldthen be filled with pleasures to overflowing on all sides and would beexempt from all pain, whether of body or mind, that is, from allevil.
11. If we had never been molested by alarms at celestialand atmospheric phenomena, nor by the misgiving that death somehow affectsus, nor by neglect of the proper limits of pains and desires, we shouldhave had no need to study natural science.
12. It would be impossible to banish fear on matters ofthe highest importance, if a person did not know the nature of the wholeuniverse, but lived in dread of what the legends tell us. Hence withoutthe study of nature there was no enjoyment of unmixedpleasures.
13. There would be no advantage in providing security againstour fellow humans, so long as we were alarmed by occurrences over our headsor beneath the earth or in general by whatever happens in the boundlessuniverse.
14. When tolerable security against our fellow humans isattained, then on a basis of power sufficient to afford supports and ofmaterial prosperity arises in most genuine form the security of a quietprivate life withdrawn from the multitude.
15. Nature's wealth at once has its bounds and is easy toprocure; but the wealth of vain fancies recedes to an infinitedistance.
16. Fortune but seldom interferes with the wise person;his greatest and highest interests have been, are, and will be, directedby reason throughout the course of his life.
17. The just person enjoys. the greatest peace of mind,while the unjust is full of the utmost disquietude.
18. Pleasure in the body admits no increase when once thepain of want has been removed; after that it only admits of variation.The limit of pleasure in the mind, however, is reached when we reflecton the things themselves and their congeners which cause the mind the greatestalarms.
19. Unlimited time and limited time afford an equal amountof pleasure, if we measure the limits of that pleasure byreason.
20. The body receives as unlimited the limits of pleasure;and to provide it requires unlimited time. But the mind, grasping in thoughtwhat the end and limit of the body is, and banishing the terrors of futurity,procures a complete and perfect life, and has no longer any need of unlimitedtime. Nevertheless it does not shun pleasure, and even in the hour of death,when ushered out of existence by circumstances, the mind does not lackenjoyment of the best life.
21. He who understands the limits of life knows how easyit is to procure enough to remove the pain of want and make the whole oflife complete and perfect. Hence he has no longer any need of things whichare not to be won save by labor and conflict.
22. We must take into account as the end all that reallyexists and all clear evidence of sense to which we refer our opinions;for otherwise everything will be full of uncertainty andconfusion.
23. If you fight against all your sensations, you will haveno standard to which to refer, and thus no means of judging even thosejudgments which you pronounce false.
24. If you reject absolutely any single sensation withoutstopping to discriminate with respect to that which awaits confirmationbetween matter of opinion and that which is already present, whether insensation or in feelings or in any immediate perception of the mind, youwill throw into confusion even the rest of your sensations by your groundlessbelief and so you will be rejecting the standard of truth altogether. Ifin your ideas based upon opinion you hastily affirm as true all that awaitsconfirmation as well as that which does not, you will not escape error,as you will be maintaining complete ambiguity whenever it is a case ofjudging between right and wrong opinion.
25. If you do not on every separate occasion refer eachof your actions to the end prescribed by nature, but instead of this inthe act of choice or avoidance swerve aside to some other end, your actswill not be consistent with your theories.
26. All such desires as lead to no pain when they remainungratified are unnecessary, and the longing is easily got rid of, whenthe thing desired is difficult to procure or when the desires seem likelyto produce harm.
27. Of all the means which are procured by wisdom to ensurehappiness throughout the whole of life, by far the most important is theacquisition of friends.
28. The same conviction which inspires confidence that nothingwe have to fear is eternal or even of long duration, also enables us tosee that even in our limited conditions of life nothing enhances our securityso much as friendship.
29. Of our desires some are natural and necessary othersare natural, but not necessary; others, again, are neither natural nornecessary, but are due to illusory opinion.
30. Those natural desires which entail no pain when notgratified, though their objects are vehemently pursued, are also due toillusory opinion; and when they are not got rid of, it is not because oftheir own nature, but because of the person's illusoryopinion.
31. Natural justice is a symbol or expression of usefullness,to prevent one person from harming or being harmed byanother.
32. Those animals which are incapable of making covenantswith one another, to the end that they may neither inflict nor suffer harm,are without either justice or injustice. And those tribes which eithercould not or would not form mutual covenants to the same end are in likecase.
33. There never was an absolute justice, but only an agreementmade in reciprocal association in whatever localities now and again fromtime to time, providing against the infliction or suffering ofharm.
34. Injustice is not in itself an evil, but only in itsconsequence, viz. the terror which is excited by apprehension that thoseappointed to punish such offenses will discover theinjustice.
35. It is impossible for the person who secretly violatesany article of the social compact to feel confident that he will remainundiscovered, even if he has already escaped ten thousand times; for righton to the end of his life he is never sure he will not bedetected.
36. Taken generally, justice is the same for all, to wit,something found useful in mutual association; but in its application toparticular cases of locality or conditions of whatever kind, it variesunder different circumstances.
37. Among the things accounted just by conventional law,whatever in the needs of mutual association is attested to be useful, isthereby stamped as just, whether or not it be the same for all; and incase any law is made and does not prove suitable to the usefulness of mutualassociation, then this is no longer just. And should the usefulness whichis expressed by the law vary and only for a time correspond with the priorconception, nevertheless for the time being it was just, so long as wedo not trouble ourselves about empty words, but look simply at thefacts.
38. Where without any change in circumstances the conventionallaws, when judged by their consequences, were seen not to correspond withthe notion of justice, such laws were not really just; but wherever thelaws have ceased to be useful in consequence of a change in circumstances,in that case the laws were for the time being just when they were usefulfor the mutual association of the citizens, and subsequently ceased tobe just when they ceased to be useful.
39. He who best knew how to meet fear of external foes madeinto one family all the creatures he could; and those he could not, heat any rate did not treat as aliens; and where he found even this impossible,he avoided all association, and, so far as was useful, kept them at adistance.
40. Those who were best able to provide themselves withthe means of security against their neighbors, being thus in possessionof the surest guarantee, passed the most agreeable life in each other'ssociety; and their enjoyment of the fullest intimacy was such that, ifone of them died before his time, the survivors did not mourn his deathas if it called for sympathy.THE END
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